Hydronic Baseboard heaters only getting hot on one side of my home

dkelly99

I have a smaller home 1200 sq foot ranch home. All baseboards on on one level there is only 1 thermostat one zone. I have a Weil- McLain oil boiler and I am having an issue where one side of baseboards two bedrooms and kitchen get plenty hot but the other side another bedroom and living room never get hot at all stay completely cold. Have tried purging any air I could. Any help would be appreciated.

EBEBRATT-Ed

You are purging air do you get any water out?

Some pictures of the piping around the boiler and pictures of the radiation piping under the floor would help.

Also check the water pressure in the boiler it should be 12-15 psi when cold maybe 20 psi when up to temp

dkelly99

When I purge air from baseboards I am mainly just getting all water not much air if any. The pressure seems good per gauge.

mattmia2

The number of shark bites are making me twitchy. Where does the partially to mostly closed valve go?

EBEBRATT-Ed

Yes, why is the orange handle valve closed?

dkelly99

So that orange handle valve is mostly closed due to the face that side of the heating loop was super hot while the other side was really not getting any heat. So in an attempt to close off that side to some degree to force heat to the other side. So you can see I think that there is one large supply that branches to two sides of the loop and they both return to boiler. One side is hot and one side is pretty much cold.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Ok.
Well the first thing back at the boiler is your drain and purge valves for both loops are on the wrong side of the isolation valves. I would swap those around you won't get it to purge right until you do that.

The two isolation valves should be near the boiler with the drain/purge valves above them

HVACNUT

What's the pipe Tee'd into the supply riser that has the blue valve handle closed? 
I see the ball valve is a Shark bite but the pipe looks like PVC.
Is that the feed? No pressure reducing valve?
Did you do any research or come here before you did the piping? It looks like you did a lot of work but didn't do it to today's standards. 

dkelly99

@HVACNUT i tried my best to direct replace parts that had broken down over time. I have well water which takes a toll of the system. I didn’t remove parts only really replaced what had busted. I will look into adding the pressure reducing valve on the fill side.

JUGHNE

Does your well pump any sand?

dkelly99

@JUGHNE no sand per say but we have sediment even with a filter. Mostly orangish clay style sediment. 

dkelly99

Could this issue just be a bad circulator pump? Obviously in my case the circulator is on the return side? It has been replaced previously maybe 8 years or so maybe 10. But with well water it might have done a number on it. Would a bad circulator still allow for one side of loop to get hot while other isn't? Thank you.

HVACNUT

Not likely. As @EBEBRATT-Ed mentioned, you need to flip the purge stations so the ball valves are below the drain valves. Use the shark bite tool and just flip them upside down. Drain the system first of course. Then you can properly purge each loop.

JUGHNE

I had a system that the sand/sediment nearly plugged up one side of the system.
If you purge each side separately after correcting the valves, you would know if this was the case.

dkelly99

Okay so I swapped the drains to above the isolation valves. And refilled and purged the system. I am still having same issue left side of system is hot and heating really well. The right side is cold. 

JUGHNE

Did you isolate and then purge and flush the right side, using house pressure from a hose, thru that zone when it was isolated from everything else?

dkelly99

@JUGHNE yes I did isolate that side and purge it thoroughly. Quite a bit sediment came out when doing so. 

dkelly99

If I drain the right side at the boiler that is the only way I am able to get the system to pull the hot water through that side. 

neilc

choke or throttle the valve for the left side ?
til the right side balances

dkelly99

@neilc that is what I have been trying to achieve and I figured maybe it is that simple but it seems to not balance. Not sure why. 

neilc

if both sides are purged well,
it should just be a matter of finding a sweet spot for the left valve,
sometimes very tricky with ball valves

JUGHNE

The reason I mentioned the sand was one job, there was no heating on the east side of the house.
This was piped as yours is.
The house had been moved and no longer had a basement, the boiler was relocated to one side of the house. This threw the balance of piping off and the east side had little flow.
With the well producing sand that unheated side flow was restricted and built up eventually enough to almost stop the flow.
Cutting open the line, adding isolation valves and purge ports, the line was flushed and rebalanced with the ball valves.

Maybe more flushing, into a bucket where you can see what you collect, might improve that flow.
Reverse the flow if possible.

neilc

I would try balancing on the push side, the left side valve up at the ceiling,
not at the purge station

dkelly99

So I flushed the system a bunch and indeed get a ton of sediment out which I feel better about getting that junk out. But I was still having a really hard time with the right side not heating. I didn't hear the circulator doing much of anything so I did swap the circulator out for a new Taco 007e. But my concern is now that the circulator seems to be running continually without a call for heat. So now I trying to figure out if the wiring is correct.

dkelly99

This is the current wiring setup that provides no power to circulator currently. 

dkelly99

mattmia2

Is that purple wire nut burned? It looks like a "copper to aluminum" wire nut.

dkelly99

@mattmia2 in the shut off box I’ll take a look. If it is looking burned of some sort what should I do at that point?  Right now with current wiring I am not getting any power to the circulator that was just installed. 

HVACNUT

The wire nut on the neutrals looks fine. Its a factory crimp connector. 
So is the circulator running constantly or not at all?
On a call for heat, TT should close and send 120v to C1. 
Do you have a meter to check power?
Since there's no pressure reducing valve, pressure should be awesome as your trying to purge the problem loop.
A PRV and BFP have screens to help prevent sediment from entering the system. 
How much water has been introduced to the system over the years? I ask because I mostly deal with homes using wells and never had this issue. On open loop Geo systems, yes. Not closed loop hydronics.

dkelly99

@HVACNUT right now with current wiring not running at all. There seems to be no power at all going to circulator with current wiring setup. 

mattmia2

So is the theory here that the part that is heating is heating with gravity circulation?

HVACNUT

So with a call for heat, C1 should be powered 120v. The yellow wire on C1 is spliced to another yellow wire in the switch box, and hopefully going to the circulator, along with a neutral. 
You should have a meter to test voltage. This would make troubleshooting much easier. 

dkelly99

@HVACNUT I do have a meter the battery died so I just got a new battery for it so I will be testing that shortly. Is it at all an issue that there is no wire connected to C2 or B2 on the aquastat?

HVACNUT

dkelly99 said:

@HVACNUT I do have a meter the battery died so I just got a new battery for it so I will be testing that shortly. Is it at all an issue that there is no wire connected to C2 or B2 on the aquastat?

No that's fine. All the neutrals are spliced in the switch box.
When testing, with the thermostat off or turned down, it should read 24v at TT in the aquastat. With the thermostat turned up and calling for heat, TT should read 0v.

dkelly99

@HVACNUT alright to the reading at TT was 24 so that is all good. However I got really no reading at C1,C2 when calling for heat. So I am assuming that the aquastat has gone bad or has a bad solder potentially or something. What is the suggest fix at this point? I really appreciate all the help on this.

mattmia2

Did tt go to 0v when you turned the t-stat to call for heat?

dkelly99

@mattmia2 yeah when I turned up thermostat to call for heat tt went to 0V.

HVACNUT

It seems like a faulty circulator contact in the relay. Not unheard of. 
Look into the Hydrostat 3250 Plus. Has a lot of cool features. You'll have to change the well if you want low water cutoff.
The only problem with that is it looks like the B/X coming down from the ceiling into L1 and L2 on the aquastat might not reach the knockout on the Hydrostat. Power comes in at the sides near the bottom or at the bottom on the Hydrostat. What is that wire connected to BTW.

dkelly99

Well I would have to say the old aquastat was toast for sure. Just did a direct replacement for it so I wasn’t over complicating things and we are back in business. Works flawlessly. Thank you everyone for your time and guidance. 

mattmia2

I can't tell which solder joint actually was bad. the whole thing is an exercise in how little solder can i use.

JUGHNE

So now do you still have unbalanced heating?